THE USE OF PROBIOTICS IN DIFFERENT PHASES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON THE BENEFITS AND CHANGES OF MICROBIOTA.
probiotics; gut microbiota; vaginal microbiota; life stages.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer health benefits on the host. For this reason, different probiotic strains have been studied in order to elucidate the benefits and changes that these can cause in the human microbiota in different age groups and health conditions. The evolution of studies encompasses the target audience, which previously was commonly composed of elderly people, children and adults with poor health, now also includes healthy individuals. This study aims to evaluate the changes and benefits that the use of probiotics confer on the intestinal microbiota of individuals from pregnancy to aging. This study is a systematic review based on the PICO model, used in EBP and recommended for systematic reviews. In this sense, we chose to use the PRISMA criteria. The results confirm the premise that the use of probiotics is a promising strategy in the modulation of the microbiota and that colonization of the intestine is closely related to the ingested probiotic strains and to the time of supplementation. The evidence presented in this review demonstrates that the use of probiotics has an impact on the human microbial profile at different stages of life and health conditions.